


Catch a falling star and never let it fade away

by mad_marie



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Clouds acting like sheep, John is a star, M/M, Open ended, Sherlock herds them clouds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:57:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_marie/pseuds/mad_marie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a lonesome cloud herder. John is a damaged Yellow Star. They chill every night until dawn, until a comet comes and sucks the life out of John - well, Sherlock would have none of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catch a falling star and never let it fade away

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Поймай упавшую звезду и никогда не дай погаснуть](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4469639) by [Hedwig221b](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedwig221b/pseuds/Hedwig221b)



> This is a response form [ Sherlock BBC Kink meme ](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/21231.html?thread=122859247#t122859247)
> 
> Sherlock is a cloud herder, John is a star and they can only talk at night. It’s tragic but beautiful. 
> 
> Then John falls. Sherlock tears up the sky looking for him.

 

Sherlock emerges from the clouds he had gathered earlier that day. It had been humid, naturally, for a season that’s changing from summer to fall, and the clouds had been plentiful, bountiful. He had somewhat a hard time gathering this lot - cumulus clouds tend to be unruly with their puffy selves.  
  
The stars are just starting to emerge from the night sky, the moon not far behind the horizon. Sherlock always prefers the night. The sun had always been very petulant and all knowing - a trait that always reminds him of his brother. That, and they have the same puffy, round and red angry face.   
  
“Sherlock!” A voice called from up above him. He looks up, and John’s glowing face startles him a bit from their proximity.  
  
“John,” Sherlock says worriedly. He shook his staff a bit, ridding it of the cottony like clouds that stuck to the bottom. “You shouldn’t be this close to the ground. You’ll fall.” He then swirled the cumulus clouds gathering them together, making them bigger and lifting him and John both higher up in the sky.  
  
He always tells John not to go close to the stratosphere, gravity is very treacherous and a lot of stars had fallen because they were too close. Even Sherlock’s clouds couldn’t save him once gravity latches itself to John.  
  
But John always smiles at him and brushes of his warnings. “Come of it, I won’t fall. You won’t let me.” And he laughs and soar a bit higher to the night sky, leaving Sherlock to tend to his growing storm clouds as he mingles with the other stars who doesn’t quite look at Sherlock as he does. They always sneered at him and call him freak behind his back. He would know- the clouds carry the whispers to him.  
  
It’s not like he minds, he doesn’t care about the stars or the moon or the sun. He had his clouds that he gathers and herds - he likes to clump them together, likes seeing what happens when they come together or held tightly, the friction that gives thunder and lightning and the colorful show of lights it tries to hide inside it. He especially likes how the living below clamor and run in fright when one of the lightning escapes from the clouds and strikes to the ground. Sometimes, if he’s lucky a human would be struck and he’ll go down as far as he could to look at the effects.  
  
The point is, he doesn’t mind being alone. Much prefers it. There were other cloud herders around him - most of them work in couples or in a group. But he’s rather capable of doing this job alone and he rather likes it that way. Once in a while his brother, Mycroft, would send someone to check up on him but his clouds would whisper to him and he’ll gather them and move before they could ever caught sight of him.

  

 

 

The clouds ram through each other and gave a loud rumble of thunder. Sherlock all but pulled his hair in frustration as he tries to calm the herd down. They're too slow, they should've been by the Isles by now but the clouds start weeping out the rain they carried as they crash together in fear. Sherlock growls in annoyancce.

“You shouldn’t frighten them with your anger then,” Someone from behind him says. Sherlock’s back goes rigid. Had Mycroft’s minions somehow followed him without him noticing? Blasted. He was too angry to care of tails and shadows. “It’s rude to not acknowledge someone when they’re trying to talk to you too.” It said again and Sherlock is forced to look for the voice that was in fact not behind but above him.  
  
Sherlock squints his eyes from the light, a star? He’d never had a star talk to him before. “Your light is too bright.” was the only thing he could say as he stares at the star above. He heard a soft ‘Oh!’ before the brightness had dwindled and he can see the full feature of the star before him.  
  
He was a yellow star. His hair bright and blonde like the light that shines within his chest. His brightness still within the range of youthfulness but Sherlock can see that this star has been living for a long time, longer than he had been. His light was dim but still bright enough to illuminate him. Stars had their light shine from their heart. This particular star had a fierce but wary light around him. And, oh! Stars should have the equal amount of light radiating from their heart, but this one… His has a dimmer part on his right than the rest. Sherlock brows furrowed, his mind seeking answers to his own question.  
  
“Gravity or comet?” He asks as he stands up and calls one cloud with his staff.  
  
The star looks at him in confusion, “I’m sorry?”  
  
Sherlock steps into the cloud and orders it to go higher, closer to the star. “Which was it, Gravity or comet?” Sherlock brow raise, unperturbed at the shifting of the star in distress.  
  
“I don’t -“ The star stops and followed Sherlock’s unfaltering gaze. He purses his lips and looks around. “It was gravity.” He finally answers before soaring a bit higher to get more distance between them. “I’m sorry, but how did you…”  
  
Sherlock points his staff on the star’s chest. “Your light is dimmer on the right than the other. It’s not a disease or because of age since you’ve not changed colour since you’ve been born and although you have been born quite sometime ago, Stars do not show fatigue until they’re about to die.” He gestures to the Star’s blonde hair and his chest, proving his point.  
  
“So that leaves a fight with another star, although rare but uncommon but that would leave you in a more unsightly state. A comet would graze through you not fatally but you would lose part of your light to it and gravity would eat you and let you fall but you’re only lost some of your light so that means that you somehow been able to fight back and that (Sherlock points to his chest again) is the result of it.”  
  
The star blinks at him, once, twice, a third time. “That is brilliant!” he exclaims, “I didn’t know cloud herders would be such.”  
  
“Not many cloud herders are, I’m the only one.” Sherlock says.  
  
The star flies closer, “But how did you know all that?”  
  
“I observe.” He answers looking at the star and gazing back to the night sky. In the distance he can hear his clouds’ thunders starting to calm and the hissing of the rain on the ground starting to dwindle. In about an hour or so, his clouds would be ready to move again, perhaps back to the meadows of western France before returning back to the sinewy, smoggy skies of outer London.  
  
“You’re brilliant, amazing! Although you have been wrong in one thing,”   
  
Sherlock’s attention comes back to the star. He had something wrong? There’s always, always something, a minute detail that he somehow forgets to grasp.   
  
“I wasn’t pulled by gravity, a friend was. I tried to stop him from falling but I failed. The backlash was the dimming.” The star explains and it seems like a click in Sherlock’s mind had made it clear.  
  
“Tch. I didn’t see that. Clearly, a direct altercation with gravity would give you a greater effect, getting a milder backlash from the intended force would give you that diminished result.” Sherlock grits his teeth, “Backslash,” He hissed to himself as if berating his mind on not being able to come to that conclusion in itself.  
  
“You seem to have me all figured out, but I don’t even know who you are cloud herder.” The star says, and Sherlock stops from muttering expletives to himself and looks up to the star.

“It’s Sherlock, and I have not figured you out entirely. Not yet anyway.”  
  
This results to the star’s laughter. “It’s an odd name, Sherlock. I’m John and I’m looking forward to you having me figured out entirely in the future.”  
  
That was John’s last words to him that night, and the star flew higher to the night sky than Sherlock can ever go to. He seems to shine brighter than he had the first time Sherlock had seen him earlier that night.  
  
After that, almost every night John would find him and chat with him about anything. He’ll stay most of the night, going up the sky to be with the other stars that will call him up although he’d do so reluctantly.  
  
“I always like London.” John says as he floats beside Sherlock who was riding a wispy cirrus cloud. Sherlock has been hanging around London for quite a while now. It’s fall and the clouds like the windy, chilly weather that London has to offer. “But the winter will be too cold and I won’t be as close as I can be, unlike before.”   
  
Sherlock knows that. Stars are like migratory birds, they draw farther from the earth during winter but they always come back and welcome summer with you with their lights brighter than before. It didn’t matter to Sherlock, he’d be alone like always, even if John’s presence had been welcomed. “Don’t be ridiculous John, you can still see London from up there and it would be waiting for you when you come back.”  
  
John didn’t know if Sherlock was still pertaining to London or to himself. But he knew that Sherlock, always factual and straight to the point, didn’t mean anything else other than what he had said. But John sometimes wish he would.

 

 

Before winter, they had busied themselves with Sherlock whisking away John to places. He would tell John about what it looks like when it’s day and sometimes John would force himself awake until the first rays of the sun to look at the earth lit by the most majestic stars of all. Sherlock would drag him as far as he can to the ground when his clouds had gathered too much vapour in them and watch with him as they pour down to the ground. He would show John how he forms his clouds, sometimes in fanciful shapes and humongous sizes. John would help Sherlock locate his lost clouds from time to time and John would laugh at Sherlock who would be soaked by his rain clouds when he pushed them too much.  
  
Sherlock realizes that he's lazy and petulant during day and bustling at night. He’d have his most brilliant plan with John during their night travels than he would have before during the afternoon sun. He’s starting to be more and more anxious during the day, restless in anticipation for the sun to go down and the moon to rise up the other end. Night was never as lonely as it used to be.

When winter did come, all he did was anticipate the time that spring would emerge from the ground. He went near the earth’s equator but it didn’t help, John was too far away then. So days and nights passed with uneager sighs and complains and short tempers and madness. Sherlock have little or no patience with his clouds and he cares less for those lost and left behind.

 

  
Three months pass by and he’s all but alive. His clouds - what’s left of them, whisper about his brother and his brother’s shadows but he cared less. He just wanted winter to end, for spring to come so he can get a glimpse of John’s imperfect but perfect brightness.  
  
The first life of spring emerges, but Sherlock knows that spring wouldn’t be at it’s fullest until a few more days. John wouldn’t be here until then, but knowing that it would be soon makes Sherlock’s heart flutter alive again.  
  
A couple of nights after he saw the first greens sprout from the ground, Sherlock’s clouds catches whispers from the wind about a comet whose tail has been severing stars that come to it’s wake. Sherlock looks up from his perch and saw the night sky glowing as hundreds and hundreds of stars falls down from the sky, giving their last bang of light before dying. His blood runs cold as his clouds’ gathered whispers grow loud to his ears. ‘Johnjohnjohnjohnjohnjohn’ they chant and Sherlock bolts to his feet, gathers his cumulus clouds together and soars into the sky as high as he could.  
  
He sees the comet in the distance, burning and angry and mad cackling in laughter as he hears the stars shriek and wail as he passes them. The comet drains the stars of their light, eating them and letting them fall to the ground and letting gravity swallow what remains of them.  
  
“John!” He yells as he saw the comet extinguishes a bright yellow star, flies towards it in full speed catching its hand before it falls completely to the earth. “John,” he helps the star up to sit on his cloud. Sherlock’s brows furrows. This isn’t John, this wasn’t his John. “John, where is John?” He asks in desperation, shaking the almost unconscious star. “Where is he?”  
  
The star blinks in a haze, “I don’t-” she starts but stops short when her heart flutters out some last remaining light.  
  
“Where is John?” Sherlock asks again. But he gets no answer as the star shrieks in agony as her heart pour out the last bright light it could before dimming into darkness. Sherlock gritted his teeth, he leaves the star lying on his cloud and summons another one to bring him up to the sky.  
  
The night sky shines like high noon as the stars fall one after another, their cries carried through the sky by the wind. Everything in the sky grew restless, even the clouds gather close together, their thunders contributing in the noise that surrounds Sherlock. The wind howling in sadness as the stars fall through, echoing their last breath.  
  
Sherlock weaves through the stars that fall like drops of rain to the ground. Every time he sees a yellow star slams its way to the ground, he runs to it, hoping against hope that it wasn’t John. 

 

 

“John, where’s John?” He asks. He’s exhausted. He’s been flying around every corner of the sky looking for John, but he can’t find him. All the stars are unable to give him an answer. “Please, do you know where he is?” He pleads, his voice breaking. He can feel the beginning of tears mixing with his sweat as he cradles the dying star. “Please…” He whispers.  
  
The star looks at him before stretching his arm out with his last strength and pointing towards the gloomy cloud riddled mountains of the Everest. “John,” the star whispers before he goes limp in Sherlock’s arms.

He gathers his clouds sparing no time and flies to the treacherous mountain and the angry clouds that rest on its peak.  
  
He passes through the ocean, gathering vapours to replenish his clouds and give him strength. He feels the storm clouds on the mountain stirring, more and more aware of his coming presence.  
  
They rumble, thunder and growl as Sherlock approached a safe distance. “What do you want, herder?” One of the storm cloud thunders. Growing another ten feet in its grey monstrous shape. No disturbance. Cloud herders were not allowed this territory. The clouds here do not want to be pushed and rolled and shaped like domesticated animals from the ground. They wanted to stay feral, wild as they thought nature had made them to be.   
  
But Sherlock could care less about the arguments of their kind to Sherlock’s. “A star had fallen here, on the mountain. I just want that star, nothing more.” Sherlock explains. “I am not here to disturb you nor herd you. Please.”  
  
“There is no star that has fallen here.” One of the clouds rumbles. As they gather closer together, Sherlock saw a small ray of yellow light pass through their haze.  
  
“John!” Sherlock calls, ignoring the storm clouds. He draws closer to where he saw the flash of light form. “John!”  
  
“There is no John here, herder!” The biggest storm cloud booms and moves to face Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock bristles, grits his teeth in anger. “You have no use of a fallen star, give him to me. I’m not here to herd any of you. Just give me the star!” Sherlock snarls, the veins in his temples throb in his anger.   
  
The storm clouds shift against each other when Sherlock mentions a fallen star. They gather among themselves. “Alright, herder. You are right, the fallen star is of no use to us. It has fallen into the highest peak of the mountain. You may have it,” The biggest storm cloud cackles, “But you have to get it without your staff or your clouds.”  
  
“That is unfair! I am powerless without my staff and I will be unable to climb the mountain without my clouds!” Sherlock cries, his time is running out. Gravity, although weaker up here, will consume John slowly. He had to get him out of here as soon as he can.  
  
“It is not our problem. That is our condition, herder.”  
  
Sherlock grips his staff tighter and looks at his clouds. He’d have to go by foot from the forest at the mountain’s foot to the snowy peaks. He wouldn’t be able to get to John, not until days. He might as well be human without his staff. He shrinks in a distance as he finds another way to get to John. He cannot bribe the clouds, he’d have to play their game. He decides to try his luck on foot, he can’t think of any other choice.

‘Windwindwindwindwind’ His clouds whisper. ‘comingcomingwindwindwindwind’ they chant to his ears. Sherlock looks around, feeling the soft touches of the breeze.  
  
“I could help,” It whispers as it dances around him and his clouds. Sherlock looks around, searching for the direction where the sliver of the wind came.   
  
“You would help me,” Sherlock says cautiously, “And what will you get in return?” Winds were tricksters, they always wants something in return.  
  
The soft breeze brushes through his fingers, through the tail of his coat and between the curls of his hair. “I want to play with the clouds, is all. You will let me play with them in return.” It whispered to his ear before picking up speed to circle through his clouds.  
  
“And that is all?” he asks as he narrows his eyes to the direction of the wind. His clouds were being shifted and shaped by the wind and he could hear his clouds soft delight echo through the breeze.  
  
“Perhaps,” the wind returns to his ear, “But do you have time to think otherwise? Your star is falling further and further.”  
  
Perhaps. Perhaps indeed. He had no choice at the moment. He’d have to trust this trickster- he’d have a higher chance of saving John. If he fails, then both of them dies, at least they would die together.  
  
Sherlock flies back to the storm clouds. “Alright, I agree with your condition.” He puts his staff on his cloud.  
  
“Anytime you want, herder.” The storm clouds cackle together.  
  
Sherlock smirked, “Anytime you want, trickster” he mimics. And he hears the almost mad laughter of the wind buzzing through his ears as he’s swept up to his feet, the wind carrying him up into the sky towards the mountain peak. The clouds never saw it coming as the blur of a tornado tear through them. The wind carries him around the peak and he sees the faint light of John on one of it’s snowy ledge. The wind draws him down enough for him to grab John and whisk them away to a safe distance from the baffled but angry storm clouds.

“You deceiver! You trickster!” boom the feral clouds. They tried to chase after them but the wind’s tail lashes out on them and blows them away into wispy tendrils of stratus clouds.  
  
Sherlock laughs madly in relief and excitement. He never flew with the wind before and it was mad. Majestic. It felt like his mind floated in ecstasy. His excitement stops short when he feels John stir on his arms. “John,” he whispers urging him to consciousness. John’s heart glows significantly as he shifts on Sherlock’s arms in discomfort. “John?” Frightfulness comes back to Sherlock as he sees the obvious signs of a star’s last seconds.  
  
“No…” he cries. He grips John tighter and urges his clouds higher, faster and faster into the atmosphere. “John, no…” He wills his power to lift them higher, higher than any clouds could reach, into the night sky. He calls out for help to the nearby stars, but they lay still in shock at the aftermath of the comet. ‘Please let him float up into the sky,’ Sherlock pleads as he gathers the last of his power to propel John higher to the sky.  
  
The last of his consciousness left him as he sees John’s heart burst into it’s last light. “John,” Sherlock whispers before he fell from the sky.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The ending, I know. It's too balkga;gawirg. I'm beating myself for having ended it like it did. I don't want to make any promises that I will write a sequel for it, but darn. I'd kill myself if I didn't write a proper ending for this.


End file.
